Corner Store at southern edge of University of Alabama demolished

The Corner Store, open since 1946 on 801 Paul Bryant Drive, is seen demolished on Thursday. The Corner Store was demolished at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday. According to workers on the site, The Dance Studio on Bryant next door will soon be turn down also.

Gigi Eyre | The Tuscaloosa News

By Ed EnochStaff Writer

Published: Thursday, June 27, 2013 at 12:24 p.m.

Last Modified: Thursday, June 27, 2013 at 12:24 p.m.

TUSCALOOSA | As a boy, Rich Anders stopped at The Corner store on the way to football games at nearby Bryant-Denny Stadium. Later, as a student at the University of Alabama, the convenience store served as a stop for groceries.

The popular store at the corner of Paul W. Bryant Drive and Eighth Avenue on the south side of campus — a fixture to Anders and others for almost 70 years — was demolished this week.

“I was very sad to see it go,” said Anders, whose family owns the Trunk, an apparel store, and Anders Hardware. “I understand progress. I don’t have anything negative to say about progress.”

But news of the demolition still gave him pause.

“I spent a lot of my life in there,” Anders said.

Construction crews are expected to complete the demolition of the vacant convenience store, which is on land owned by UA, this weekend.

Cathy Andreen, director of media relations for UA, said landscaping will be installed once the demolition is complete and that the university will decide on a future use for the lot based on the campus master plan.

The landscaping is expected to be finished by the end of July, Andreen said.

Andreen said the vacant store near Julia Tutwiler Hall had “significant deferred maintenance issues” and would have been prohibitively expensive to renovate for use by the university.

Demolition work by Britt Demolition and Recycling Inc. began June 19, according to Andreen.

The adjoining building housing a dance studio will eventually be demolished once the studio has been relocated to a suitable space, Andreen said. Right now, there is no timetable for the demolition of the dance studio.

The Trunk, purchased by Anders’ family in 2002 from the owners of the Corner, was located beside the convenience store until the souvenir shop’s relocation to University Boulevard in June 2012.

The university acquired the properties in 2007, Andreen said.

News that the store had been torn down also stirred memories for Paul Isom, a UA graduate with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism.

Isom, who is also a former journalism instructor at UA, said the store was part of the common experience for many students on campus.

“There were lots of buildings that you never stepped into ... that was one everyone stepped into,” he said.

Isom, now a journalism instructor at North Carolina State University, said he frequented the store to cash checks while he was a student during the 1980s.

“Before ATM machines, that was how you got cash ... it was much easier than going to the bank,” he said.

For Isom, the Corner Store is the latest in a disappointing trend of demolitions of older buildings on campus — a conflict, as he sees it, between the need for progress and the preservation of the historically or emotionally significant.

“I understand it was probably not a practical building or useful building to the university — but that has been their line with everything,” Isom said.

Isom said many of the structures are emotional focal points for alumni, noting his attachment to the Office of Student Media, which was demolished in May.

“Part of the significance of these buildings isn’t that they are architecturally beautiful. It is that we lived our lives in them,” Isom said.

Reach Ed Enoch at ed.enoch@tuscaloosanews.com or 205-722-0209.

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